Lost Discussion Group: The Oceanic NOT-Six

Today is the first of a month of Lostless Thursdays, so let’s reconvene the LDG for a spring session. As always, tangents and digressions in the comments are encouraged, since they usually raise better questions than what I come up with.

The other day I was jawboning with TIME’s John “The Contrarian” Cloud about whether Claire is dead in the “future” (bottom line: I dunno), and it occurred to me: we now know who the Oceanic Six are, but for all our focus on them, we haven’t talked much about the Oceanic Not-Six, i.e., the people who are (presumably) still on the island or dead. To wit:

* Did those who stayed behind on the island stay by choice? If so, why did they choose to stay? If not, why were they (and the 6) selected?

* Why didn’t Claire leave the island with Aaron? And is she alive? For that matter, why the cover story about the “eight” who survived the crash, two of which who were not rescued? Presumably (if Claire is alive), the Six would have had to “kill” her to explain why Kate has her baby. Is the other one Jin? And is he really dead?

* I have no idea how many Losties (or Others) are alive or dead in the “future,” but from the allusions we’ve gotten in the flash-forwards, it sounds like at least somebody is back there on the island alive. So what happened to the supposed plot to kill everyone after retrieving Ben?

If this season is moving toward showing us how the 6 get off the island, presumably some of these questions will be answered soon, but I barely even have a guess at most of them. Hopefully, you’ll have better luck.